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As I understand it, the issue over gender self-identification and use of women's facilities is to do with the concern that it will provide the opportunity for surreptitious videoing and abuse of women by people who are biologically male. I can't see how the desire to be protected from than somehow invalidates a desire for equal pay. Are you suggesting that women should settle for one or the other? Does freedom from abuse come at the cost of lower pay?

I'm really struggling to see how these two issues are related.

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Because it couldn't possibly be down to gender discrimination. Let's blame the woman for not asking hard enough.

Not at all - simply stating that equality isn't a simple question of everything being made equal. The issue about transgender self ID is that it creates a clash of equalities between those that need to be able to self ID to be themselves without jumping through hurdles, and women that fear what that could open the door to. The point being that if men and women were entirely equal, there wouldn't be a reason to differentiate around safety or other issues. Which brings us back to the gender pay gap - at least part of the gender pay gap arises because men and women tend to choose different roles which have different pay structures, which in a multi role organisation can lead to apparent pay differences. Clearly two people with the same level of qualification and experience (where those are relevant) doing near enough identical roles should be paid the same - we get into difficulties when we start to worry that the 80 exclusively female secretaries in a law firm bring down the average female pay so that its lower than the small number of male lawyers who are the only men employed there. Is it really a societal problem that men just don't seem to like typing - probably not. It might be a problem if say lots of women want to be plumbers which pays more but they never get a chance and end up settling to be secretaries.

And if it was nothing to do with gender, you would expect it to happen equally to men and women.

Which is why the gender pay statistics are so useful. It means that systematic differences cannot be dismissed in the same way that individual differences can. If there is a systematic difference in pay between genders is suggests that something is wrong either with that company or more widely in society.

As I understand it, the issue over gender self-identification and use of women's facilities is to do with the concern that it will provide the opportunity for surreptitious videoing and abuse of women by people who are biologically male. I can't see how the desire to be protected from than somehow invalidates a desire for equal pay. Are you suggesting that women should settle for one or the other? Does freedom from abuse come at the cost of lower pay?

I'm really struggling to see how these two issues are related.

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Because it couldn't possibly be down to gender discrimination. Let's blame the woman for not asking hard enough.

I think what mang21 is saying is that we either get treated truly equal (same toilets and women not able to say trans women are not allowed to use female toilets) or we pick and choose (it is ok for pay to be equal but not transgender issues). The first example being the preferred.

I don't think it is down to gender, no. I do not accept that in 2018 Britain people look at a woman and actively say they must earn less. There are men too that do not ask for pay rises and are paid less than their female counterparts who have.

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Originally Posted by KingstonCubber

And if it was nothing to do with gender, you would expect it to happen equally to men and women.

Which is why the gender pay statistics are so useful. It means that systematic differences cannot be dismissed in the same way that individual differences can. If there is a systematic difference in pay between genders is suggests that something is wrong either with that company or more widely in society.

The point being that if men and women were entirely equal, there wouldn't be a reason to differentiate around safety or other issues.

There is currently an inequality, that the vast majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by men and against women. Until this is rectified, I don't think it unreasonable to take steps to reduce the risk to women. And I fail to see how this 'creates confusion' or counts as 'equality with special bits'. I'm sure women would far rather that the inequality in sexual assault was removed rather than have to take steps to protect themselves.

Which brings us back to the gender pay gap - at least part of the gender pay gap arises because men and women tend to choose different roles which have different pay structures, which in a multi role organisation can lead to apparent pay differences.

I'd question how free that 'choice' is. There are many reasons from societal pressure, to unfair burden of child care, and a whole host of other reasons why men and women tend to end up in different roles. I'd be very unwilling to make the lazy assumption that the gender difference in seniority is just down to personal choice.

...we get into difficulties when we start to worry that the 80 exclusively female secretaries in a law firm bring down the average female pay so that its lower than the small number of male lawyers who are the only men employed there. Is it really a societal problem that men just don't seem to like typing - probably not. It might be a problem if say lots of women want to be plumbers which pays more but they never get a chance and end up settling to be secretaries.

I don't see why we get into difficulties by worrying about the fact that the majority of low-paid employees of a law firm are predominantly female. That is the sort of inequality that the gender pay statistics are supposed to highlight, and they do fairly effectively. I agree, it may be a wider problem that it's hard for a single firm to address, in which case it will presumably have a similar gender pay gap to it's competitors. However, if a particular firm's statistics are worse than others in the same sector it suggests it can't simply be blamed on wider societal problems.

And if it was nothing to do with gender, you would expect it to happen equally to men and women.

Which is why the gender pay statistics are so useful. It means that systematic differences cannot be dismissed in the same way that individual differences can. If there is a systematic difference in pay between genders is suggests that something is wrong either with that company or more widely in society.

But this 'pay gap' notion is so flawed, that you have to drill down and understand ALL the factors that influence how people are paid. One factor isn't enough to understand what is going on in the workplace. I would dispute that there are systemic differences, or if there are, they are already illegal so we just need to enforce the laws we have, rather than run around fixing a problem that isn't really a problem, it's just a description of the reality we're in.

It's like intersectionality. People are put by others, or put themselves, into boxes. Various boxes score more in the victimhood/oppressor scale. So, as a straight white Christian male over 50, I am put into boxes which score no points. Some characteristics allow people to score more points. This method allows special interest groups to identify a problem, and then press policy makers to fix that problem, on the terms of the special interest group. This suggests that, for example, all gay men think the same, because they are gay. But how do gay men look at politics; like Milo Yiannopolous, or Owen Jones? The approach is obviously not useful.

So a sensible person could invent more boxes, so that we know how to deal with people based on more characteristics. But that doesn't work in the real world, either. There aren't enough victim/oppressor boxes to accurately cover everyone.

Eventually you have to get to the point where you are treating everyone as an individual, because we are all different.

Unfortunately that doesn't work for some people, because they lose the power they have over policy makers and their follower groups. So they have to continue 'exposing' problems in society which can only be solved using their analysis.

I think what mang21 is saying is that we either get treated truly equal (same toilets and women not able to say trans women are not allowed to use female toilets) or we pick and choose (it is ok for pay to be equal but not transgender issues). The first example being the preferred.

I don't think it is down to gender, no. I do not accept that in 2018 Britain people look at a woman and actively say they must earn less. There are men too that do not ask for pay rises and are paid less than their female counterparts who have.

This seems to be arguing that we can't make anything equal until everything is equal. In this case, it is the gender inequality in sexual assault which is causing the concerns about self gender-identification and toilet use. But to suggest we shouldn't be attempting to tackle pay inequality until the inequality in sexual assault has been solved seems a strange argument to make.

It does happen to both men and women.

And if it happens to men and women equally, it wouldn't show up in the gender pay statistics. If it happens more often to women it would show up, and it's a cause for concern.

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But this 'pay gap' notion is so flawed, that you have to drill down and understand ALL the factors that influence how people are paid. One factor isn't enough to understand what is going on in the workplace. I would dispute that there are systemic differences, or if there are, they are already illegal so we just need to enforce the laws we have, rather than run around fixing a problem that isn't really a problem, it's just a description of the reality we're in.

When jobs which shift from being predominantly male to predominantly female the pay rate drops and vice versa.

Up thread, someone was arguing that simple supply and demand determined wages. While this may be the case in a hypothetically perfectly free market, it certainly isn't the case currently, where societal expectations and assumptions about the 'value' of different work plays a large part in determining pay.

It isn't just a problem if men and women are being paid different amounts for the same job. It is also a problem if predominantly female jobs are paid less than predominantly male jobs. We have to ask both whether there men and women are given a free and equal choice of job but also whether we are valuing different work fairly.

The sad thing is, the second sentence is probably true. Part of the pay gap is the facts that:

1) Women are less likely to negotiate when offered a job (so start on less than a man would who would negotiate).
2) Women are less likely to ask for a pay rise (meaning they don't get them as often, making the gap bigger).
3) Women are only likely to apply for a role that they fit 90% of the description, where as man will apply at as low as 40%, meaning that women don't apply for higher paid jobs they could probably get.

These are of course generalisations. I can't remember where I heard those stats but my experience bears them out. All that said, I've known men who stay in the same job for a long time, not accepting pay-rises then get upset when new staff negotiate better salaries on start.

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But this 'pay gap' notion is so flawed, that you have to drill down and understand ALL the factors that influence how people are paid. One factor isn't enough to understand what is going on in the workplace. I would dispute that there are systemic differences, or if there are, they are already illegal so we just need to enforce the laws we have, rather than run around fixing a problem that isn't really a problem, it's just a description of the reality we're in.

It's like intersectionality. People are put by others, or put themselves, into boxes. Various boxes score more in the victimhood/oppressor scale. So, as a straight white Christian male over 50, I am put into boxes which score no points. Some characteristics allow people to score more points. This method allows special interest groups to identify a problem, and then press policy makers to fix that problem, on the terms of the special interest group. This suggests that, for example, all gay men think the same, because they are gay. But how do gay men look at politics; like Milo Yiannopolous, or Owen Jones? The approach is obviously not useful.

So a sensible person could invent more boxes, so that we know how to deal with people based on more characteristics. But that doesn't work in the real world, either. There aren't enough victim/oppressor boxes to accurately cover everyone.

Eventually you have to get to the point where you are treating everyone as an individual, because we are all different.

Unfortunately that doesn't work for some people, because they lose the power they have over policy makers and their follower groups. So they have to continue 'exposing' problems in society which can only be solved using their analysis.

I think the place your started (the gender pay gap) has very little to do with the place you ended up (niche groups 'exposing' manufactured problems in society), although I agree with your destination.

It seems to me, the problem in this instance isn't about pay structures, but about choices young people make and how they're informed by society and all its manifold wrinkles and eddies. Government prefers tangibles, it can measure them and say they've improved - social norms? Meh, not so much so.

I agree with what you say about putting people into boxes, its an impossible exercise. And yup, there are professional grievance hunters who make their living often off the back of proxy offence.

Got to say, I can't stand them.

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Originally Posted by nevynxxx

The sad thing is, the second sentence is probably true. Part of the pay gap is the facts that:

1) Women are less likely to negotiate when offered a job (so start on less than a man would who would negotiate).
2) Women are less likely to ask for a pay rise (meaning they don't get them as often, making the gap bigger).
3) Women are only likely to apply for a role that they fit 90% of the description, where as man will apply at as low as 40%, meaning that women don't apply for higher paid jobs they could probably get.

These are of course generalisations. I can't remember where I heard those stats but my experience bears them out. All that said, I've known men who stay in the same job for a long time, not accepting pay-rises then get upset when new staff negotiate better salaries on start.

I didn't know about those, but will defer confidently to your knowledge & experience.

What I would say is, its probably an ouroborus argument - if that is true about women then its a vicious circle that's perpetuating itself. I would also proffer the notion that it is that way because of a historical and somewhat on-going (but lessening) misogyny in society.

I didn't know about those, but will defer confidently to your knowledge & experience.

What I would say is, its probably an ouroborus argument - if that is true about women then its a vicious circle that's perpetuating itself. I would also proffer the notion that it is that way because of a historical and somewhat on-going (but lessening) misogyny in society.

So its still about gender inequality.

Yep, it's about gender inequality. It's almost certainly something systemic. The question is, how do you "fix" it? It's certainly not as simple as saying "these companies aren't doing well enough, they need a kicking."

Yep, it's about gender inequality. It's almost certainly something systemic. The question is, how do you "fix" it? It's certainly not as simple as saying "these companies aren't doing well enough, they need a kicking."

I don't think this is about giving individual companies 'a kicking'.

If a company can point to the figures being similar for their whole sector, they can reasonably argue that it's a wider problem which they probably can't solve on their own. What these figures really do is highlight those firms which are either lagging behind, or doing particularly well for their sector.

This seems to be arguing that we can't make anything equal until everything is equal. In this case, it is the gender inequality in sexual assault which is causing the concerns about self gender-identification and toilet use. But to suggest we shouldn't be attempting to tackle pay inequality until the inequality in sexual assault has been solved seems a strange argument to make.

And if it happens to men and women equally, it wouldn't show up in the gender pay statistics. If it happens more often to women it would show up, and it's a cause for concern.

As has been said a few times this is because generally women are more agreeable than men.

When jobs which shift from being predominantly male to predominantly female the pay rate drops and vice versa.

Up thread, someone was arguing that simple supply and demand determined wages. While this may be the case in a hypothetically perfectly free market, it certainly isn't the case currently, where societal expectations and assumptions about the 'value' of different work plays a large part in determining pay.

It isn't just a problem if men and women are being paid different amounts for the same job. It is also a problem if predominantly female jobs are paid less than predominantly male jobs. We have to ask both whether there men and women are given a free and equal choice of job but also whether we are valuing different work fairly.

When men and women are left to sort themselves out there are clear divisions in what they choose as careers. The only way to change this is huge social pressure and legislation. Nobody wants this.